Indeed, we’re back here talking about episode 4 of Gargantia. No fighting in this episode, so Red gets an opportunity to actually have conversations with people on the fleet and learn a little bit more about the culture of these people. Speaking of conversation, Sumairii and my friend & Anivision co-host Xcom join us for the podcast, so enjoy more talking from more people!

It’s time for another week of awesome fun with Gargantia and this week we brought in Sumairii and Xcom join in for our epic mini chats~

41 Responses to “Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet – 04”

Sigh, this series seems to be starting to go exactly where I didn’t want it to go and I hope it doesn’t become its downfall.

This episode was better than last week, but not as good as the first two. This series is beginning to go down predictable territory and that’s what I dread.

Here we see Red trying to understand Gargantia’s society in comparison with his own people, who are much more strict and controlled in nature. The Alliance is completely run by war and everything is made to be efficient and run smoothly, even if that means losing some of the humanity within the Human Galactic Alliance. And while I don’t agree with their views, I can understand where they come from. Humankind probably had a hard time trying to survive in space, and eventually it adapted into a more cold and controlled environment in order to cope. It actually reminds me a little of ancient Rome or Athens.

I also don’t think anyone in the Alliance has families or relationships as we know them, since Chamber reports that “family” is an antiquated term that humans in a bygone age use to have. And Chamber would know how those on Avalon would act. He’s a machine and would know this even if Red didn’t. Actually, life in the Alliance reminds me a little of the futuristic world in “The Giver” by Lois Lowry. Where everything is done more efficiently, the weak are gotten rid of, “families”, “mates”, “careers” are all planned. However, the Alliance is not completely inhuman, we can see from the beginning episode that they do have emotions and can make there own decisions despite orders, so I think that while they are a very ordered society, they are not too far gone.

Bevel is a really wise kid and he gives new meaning to “out of the mouth of babes”. The way he’s able to actually understand Red and talk to him on his level is quite outstanding. He’s got a very mature head on his shoulders. Unlike even Amy, or many other characters I could name, Bevel doesn’t scream or yell or rebuke Red on his way of life, even as Red states point blank that his society would kill a person like him because of his infirmity/weakness. He instead simply tries to understand and ask poignant questions of his own.

All that said however, I hope this show doesn’t just become a paint-by-numbers “soldier boy learns to become nice, simple, ‘life is precious’ Earth boy” series plot, because that would be totally boring and a waste of a good series, in my opinion. I like that Red is learning to become his own man, but I hope these downtime slice-of-life episodes don’t become a trend.

I give this episode a 7/10.

You know, listening to you guys actually made me see this episode is a brighter light. I wouldn’t watch it again, but I think I liked it a little more after listening.

Also, it would be hilarious if Red has the same pockets that Sousuke Sagura has. I think that boy fit an entire arsenal in his school uniform pockets, especially in the Fumoffu series.

Red will start to learn, how is it to be a normal person. That’s absolutely inevitable, but I don’t think that this show will take that route. Considering the fact that Gen Urobuchi is working on it, I have faith. Though personally, I wouldn’t mind Red becoming more humanly. Not an entire softie, no. But he does deserve to feel happiness of ordinary life.

True they are turning Red into this soft character with all the interaction between him and Amy lately, but I wonder if something will happen to case Red to become a soldier once again? The only real thing I can see would be the aliens coming to earth?

Yeah I think you are right on with the Alliance’s views on family, mates and careers! They seem to be pro military and if you do not have anything they want you are screwed…

Bavel why so smart? No seriously why are you so smart?! I hope they become best friends, but like I said before I get the feeling he might not be around forever >.> I just hope Red learns from him.

Not a bad score~

Well this makes me happy to hear! I am glad you are enjoying the Gargantia mini talks <3

– The desalination of water is a very spendy process, either in energy, time, or area. Gargantia does not have a surplus of any of these three, so catching as much as possible that falls ‘free’ from the sky is improving quality of life. This is how it’s been in sailing forever, fresh water is a precious resource. But it’s also not that easy to find weather that will rain out on the open sea, especially since they don’t seem to have surplus electricity to run things like weather radar.

– I’m trying very hard to not think about the additional volume of water that would have to be created out of nowhere to flood the entire planet, or the geological processes that would be required to flatten those areas that could still stick up above a reasonable water surface. That’s a lot of water…

– I would say that the other boy is probably a creche-mate of Red’s. And he may not have been culled, he may have just been sent off in another squadron or duty, never to be seen again.

– I also wonder if ‘standby’ means the same thing to Red and Bevel. We saw at the beginning of the series that Red was awakened from hibernation to fight the Hideauze. That is likely the ‘standby’ state. So ‘standing by for new orders’ for Red is nearly the same as not existing, rather than for Bevel it is existing day to day.

– Finally, locating the position of Earth is probably something really difficult. We don’t have an idea of any of the time frames here, although star positions aren’t going to move in time frames of thousands of years. Someone in the Galactic Alliance probably knows where Earth is, but why put that kind of info into Chamber? There’s no chance that he’d end up there (har har). Plus, only seeing one side of the heavens can give you an idea of which direction you are, but not really how far you are, even if you can match things up to the different positions.

- I’m trying very hard to not think about the additional volume of water that would have to be created out of nowhere to flood the entire planet, or the geological processes that would be required to flatten those areas that could still stick up above a reasonable water surface. That’s a lot of water…

I’m not sure, but I think somewhere they state that sudden changes in the sun caused the polar ice caps to completely melt causing a major overflow into the oceans which would have flooded over all the land. Now, how humans survived such major geological shifts from the sun’s flares to the giant floods and tsunamis is another question entirely…

But such an event would be catastrophic enough to make most of the surviving human race take to the stars to find a new home.

Yeah, no chance. If all the ice on the poles of the Earth were to melt, the estimate is about 220 feet of water surface rise (and it doesn’t matter if the north pole all melts, that would cause nearly zero change, because that mass is already almost completely supported in the seas). That’s not even enough to flood my house here within 100 miles of the US east coast. The total amount of land mass lost would be miniscule, although there would be quite a lot of impact to populated areas.

I have no problem with changes that drove people off earth. It’s the waterworld aspect now that is not believable.

But like I said, once you get past that thing, the rest of the show is fine. And if we assume something that smoothed out the world a lot more, then we could have a surface that’s all water. It’s also possible that there is some reason that land is uninhabitable, or at least a worse choice than giant flotillas of ships. It’s hard to think of one, but it’s possible.

LOL, it’s okay, :). The science in all these mecha shows can often go towards the unbelievable. From the “Dyson Spheres” of Valvrave, to the anti-gravity swimming globe in MJP, to the waterworld premise and Chamber’s mini “black hole” gravity well in Gargantia. It all comes with the sci-fi territory.

In all honesty, I think the whole “ice caps melting causing the entire world to flood” thing was also the original premise to that 90s Kevin Costner movie, “Waterworld” as well. So, Gargantia just went with a premise that had already been done before.

Also, I do have to wonder why they say “rain” is such a rare occurrence in this world. Often, land surrounded by a lot of water often get a lot of rain, such as south Florida or Seattle. I’d expect that to be amplified times a thousand now that there’s no land at all. The humidity must be awful! (My hair would never survive… )

And what the heck do these people do in the case of storms, typhoons, hurricanes, underwater earthquakes and volcanoes that can cause tsunamis? No wonder they haven’t come along that far technologically, what with most of info lost, but also natural disasters must set them way back as well.

Actually, in most of those cases it’s the land that causes the rain. Just as you’ve probably seen those time lapse images of clouds piling up on one side of a mountain, the irregularities of landmasses cause more clouds and rain events. Same kind of thing with tsunamis: land causes them to pile up to great heights, instead of traveling as a long, sometimes almost unnoticeable, swell.

I would imagine that the biggest reason they haven’t progressed technologically is that they are energy and food poor. Yes, they have enough to survive, but they don’t have the surpluses necessary to free up large amounts of productivity on pursuits not directly contributing to necessities.

I thought this might be the case (I vaguely remember learning that mountains “force” rain out and are thus lush on one side but dry on the other), but my meteorology-fu needs some brushing up. Good to know though.

@Highway, Hmm, I still think that problems such as storms and hurricanes would be an issue. Even today, you don’t want to be a ship out at sea while a major storm hits or a hurricane forms. And with nowhere to dock, what would the ships of Gargantia do? And what would happen if a storm caused a “Titanic” incident where instead of an iceberg, a ship hit a mountain or something? Can they send out an SOS to other ships?

It was just some recent thoughts I had considering this world that Gargantia is in (that seems to have nothing “verdurous” about it…) and how the human race is still able to exist in it.

I’d imagine the gigantic nature of their anchored flotilla is quite a hedge against rough seas. No, you’d rather not be on the water, but if you are, in a gigantic, probably half-mile wide aggregation of ships is going to be the best place to be.

Yes, it seems I had overestimated the practicality of desalination. It is a process that is done, but it isn’t exactly the best way to get fresh water. Leave it to nature to do things right, I guess. =P

A good development episode though slightly disappointed that there wasn’t any action this time around. I find Gargantia is becoming a very upbeat, approved for all ages kind of show which is odd considering Gen Urobuchi is writing the script.

A stranger comes out of nowhere, offers help and defends you and you repay him by giving him a space unfit for even a homeless person and you pin a bill on him at the back of it? Wow, how ungrateful can these people be? Not to mention they’re starting to take advantage of Chamber. At least Amy was decent enough to defend Ledo’s interests.

It was a bit hard to tolerate Ledo’s view on how things should be done, almost to the point of being heartless but sad that he doesn’t know any other way of life. And how they deal with those unable to fight was appaling. That’s beyond living with an iron fist and with the flashback, it’s obvious he never had a childhood. If taken the wrong way, it would look like the Alliance are the villains.

Now with learning how the Gargantia people live and the memory of an apparent sibling who most likely was killed because he had some sort of physical problem, he’ll definitely start questioning his previous way of life. In my opinion, the danger of being a full time soldier is that if there’s no war, no orders, than you have nothing to live for. What do you do with yourself? Because you’ve dedicated your life to a singular thing.

For the podcast concern about the weather, there’s a theory of mine. One could say the planet got to how it is because of a climate change. Think of the movie “The Day After Tomorrow” as an example where a climate change caused a storm inducing natural disasters (Twisters in Los Angeles, a city wide flood in New York that nearly covered the head of the statue of Liberty) worldwide before finally freezing everything. I could say something similar happened and everything melted because the climate changed again and lessened the chances of rain. Rain is hard to by in dry weather and the characters seem to be in a perpetual period of it.

I think that is also one of the problems that I have with this series is how the Gargantians (at least the adults) seem to see Red as really nothing special and are often ungrateful. I mean, this is a guy who proves that your legends of people going to the stars is not a myth, and not only can people live in space with tech wayyyy beyond yours, but there are also alien beings out there as well. A little “shock and awe” would be nice guys!

But no, give the futuristic visitor, the find of the century, menial chores to do, give him a dump to live in, and charge him with a bill that he can’t possibly pay? You do realize this guy could have taken over your whole fleet in 5 minutes if he wanted…and you stick him with a bill?

And then they’re acting like it’s Red’s problem that he can’t adapt quickly to becoming one of them? Asking why he’s so “lazy”, and why can’t he stop thinking so “militarily”? Come on guys, if you’d take the same amount of time that you take complaining about Red, and instead learn from him, you’d be the best fleet on Earth.

I can’t see why Amy and Bevel are the only ones who have even thought to ask Red about space life and about his tech. Even that old professor never even showed any real curiosity about an entire group of human beings, living in the far reaches of the galaxy that have the power to create wormholes and have interstellar travel!

A lot of people seem to be unhappy with Gargantia’s treatment of Red. I, however, don’t find it all too surprising.

I get the feeling that the grown-ups still don’t fully believe that Red is of another world, despite the rather obvious evidence of Chamber’s capabilities and Red’s different tongue. They certainly recognize the power that Chamber wields, but Red himself hasn’t directly done all too much to impress them. He just happens to hold Chamber’s leash, which, some of the grown-ups are convinced they can take from him.

And speaking of language, I wonder if all the humans on Earth now speak the same tongue. This might not be addressed considering the focus of the show, but one would think that different cultures and languages still exist in this world. Especially if the people are still divided into different fleets (perhaps comparable to countries). If this is the case, then Red speaking a different language would be even less striking to them.

I thought it was actually handled pretty well. SOMEBODY’s gotta repair the damage, and those somebodies cost money to get them to do the work. Like I said above, there’s not a lot of excess productivity lying around waiting to make itself useful. So I think it’s plenty fair for Red to have to pay for the repairs, and staying there with Chamber means he doesn’t have to pay for other accommodations.

TANSTAAFL. For some more exploration of that rule, I recommend The Moon is a Harsh Mistress or The Cat Who Walks Through Walls.

As we’ve been shown, this world has to roll up it’s sleeve and work hard, just to be able to get water at the moment’s notice, plus everything else to feed and shelter themselves. Salvage is not easy work, and the environment is incredibly unfriendly.

So Red comes from the stars, so what. Does that idea help them get by on the day to day they have to do? I hope that idea changes in time during the whole show.

Well, I wouldn’t expect the everyday laymen to wonder that much, but I’m guessing they’ve become used to the salvaging way of life for several generations now, so it’s now just the way of the world. But if your way of the world was suddenly interrupted by an alien/human from the stars, I think someone would take the time to be in astonishment and pretty curious about this new thing that has now arrived.

And you’re telling me there aren’t any curious, ingenuitive, before-their-time, progressive people in this world that dream and are working to try to advance the human race? You know the whole “necessity is the mother of invention” sort of thing? Red would be a gold mind to such people. And yet not one adult, so far has even gone up to Red interested in his world and how it works.

Also, being a soldier, Red probably knows how to build and do certain things in the name of survival if he was in a similar situation as he is now, and he’s had an education, so he might be able to at least teach them some fundamentals from his world, so all technology doesn’t stay “lost”.

Oh, I do hope necessity rears it’s head, as it will mix up the story a bit. But, people, in addition to being laymen, also fear or hold in reserve that which they don’t understand, even if they have it in their fold. I’m taking the stand-offishness as perhaps, “a bit of time to adjust”.

I think you’re expecting everyone to treat the main character as someone amazing when they have better technology than everyone else. And really, that technology doesn’t do much for day to day business that would really make everyone happy. Chamber can’t desalinate water. Sure, he can destroy pirates, but that’s an issue that only appears time to time. The Gargantians need steady supplies of necessities before they go crazy with new technology. Plus, Red can use the technology of Chamber, but we don’t know if he can make it. I can use computers, but I sure don’t know how to make them.
And plus, spaceships aren’t that useful when there’s no way to build them let alone any motivation in the people to go out to space. The Gargantians are overall a happy people. They are happy with what they have, rather than trying to get everything. That’s sure something people in our time could learn from, including myself.
So yeah, that’s how I feel.

Oh god, SnG will have a beach episode too well, not exactly beach but whatever. I wonder how will Red react when he sees all those hot girls in swimsuits :3
I really like him, so cute o(^O^)o especially when he cried. I don’t know why but that moment really got me. Did he also have a brother who was ill and disposed of? I think that’s it…………..
Heheee :3 I wanna know when Red will start to warm up. Well, he already started to, but I want to see real progress~! >O<

But that’s pretty much what it was, I think. When Red started to cry, he didn’t even understand why that happened. Either his memory was erased, or he was brainwashed to the point where his own brother’s death doesn’t mean anything to him and he forgot it himself.

Actually, I never thought he was. It takes emotions to go and protect your teammates even in the face of death. If he totally just obeyed orders, he would have just left them and gone back when they told them all to retreat.

This may be just me, and how I read into things I would want to do with such a story, but with Bevel:

After his and Red’s talk, does Bevel, by his posture and by what he doesn’t explicitly say (and by what happens with Red during the rest of the episode with his “landlords”, his visit to the Doctor, etc) seems to say, “…and you’re not a soldier now, you’re a refugee, only time will tell if you get back to the front lines….would you not bring my quality of life into question, cause my sister could get dangerous”?

Hmmmmm interesting I guess if Amy is attached to Red she could chase after him if the evil aliens attack? I could see that playing out as we get closer to the end and I feel that Red and Babel will have a lot to talk about.

This episode gave me the feeling that Red is kind of being placed between Bevel and Chamber: Bevel wants (in a sort) to convince Red that soldier definitions of effective/useful don’t match up in Gargantia. Red doesn’t understand this but is intrigued by the idea, whereas Chamber stays as a constant: don’t worry about it, these people don’t really matter since you’ll be going back to war.
For me, I would rather see Red shift a bit towards Bevel and see the faults in his own society, but I know people want some more action… To be honest, I get the feeling this show is just Urobuchi trying to show that he can build a world properly and even force a main character to not feel that special. He’s humbling Red, and I like that a lot. (Madoka was treated wayyyy too special, seriously. Although she proved herself worthy in the end.)
And plus that rain scene was hilarious. I didn’t really need any Red fanservice (uh, no, he’s not that cute, although Gargantia is rather lacking in good looking guys anyways) but this show is kind of reminding us of what we take for granted- like families and rain.

I too would like to see Red follow along with Bevel’s way of thinking. When we saw the kid in episode 2, you just knew he was going to play a big role in helping Red understand life with Gargantia. He’s already been somewhat handicapped in action by vowing not to kill, so Bevel could add a very humanizing layer to Red.

You know, I’m thinking that maybe we’re all thinking about this the wrong way. Sure Red’s the star, but is this really about him? What if this is about humanity as a whole?

We are beginning to paint this picture of Avalon and we’ve so far been having a “them” vs. “us” mentality where they’re concerned. But remember that the Galactic Human Alliance are in fact, human. Their home is Earth. They’re been looking for another planet like Earth since they left it, Red spoke on that a few episodes ago. Should they really be denied the chance to go home?

Sure, the Alliance has developed a culture that most of us wouldn’t agree with, but I think that that was out of necessity in response to harsh space life. What were they to do with only a limited amount of food and supplies, dangerous surroundings, alien enemies at every turn, you can understand why they began to go toward a very ordered, military style, almost sterile culture, where they limit the birth rate and get rid of the weak. This is really nothing new for humanity, space life must have brought elements of it back in the name of survival.

However, even despite our brutal past, humanity has be able to adapt and change and I think that the people of the Alliance deserve that. What if, instead of Red simply learning Earth life and just deciding to settle down forgetting all about the Alliance, he serves as an ambassador, a go-between for the two groups and becomes a catalyst for a cultural shift for the Human Alliance?

I think there is much that both groups can learn from each other, for neither group can really survive forever at the status quo. Gargantia and those of Earth are going to eventually need a change. Right now they are surviving, but they are not really thriving. The same for the Alliance, who is stuck in an impasse against their enemies.
And we are fooling ourselves if we think that Red can completely let go of his responsibility towards the Alliance who are still at war trying to survive against the Hideauze. We’ve seen that he cares about his fellow soldiers, so I doubt that he can totally just desert without a care.